Sony announces PlayStation 4

Sony has unveiled its next generation video game console, the Playstation 4,
at an event in New York.

The new console will be powered by an X86 CPU and an enhanced PC graphics processor, with 8GB of memory. The design will be seen as easy to develop software for and will please games makers who found the PlayStation 3's unusual architecture difficult.

The predecessor console was introduced in 2007 and has sold 77m units worldwide to date.

"We’ve taken a deeply consumer-focused and developer- centric approach to the PlayStation 4," said Mark Cerny, lead system architect on the console.

Sony did not show off the exterior design of the PlayStation 4, but did unveil the new Dual Shock 4 controller, which has a front touchpad and a motion sensor bar. The sensor bar will communicate with a motion-sensing camera on the console to identify players and utilise motion control.

Though Sony did not say how much the console would cost, it did reveal that it expects to launch the PS4 this year, in time for the Christmas season. It is aiming to get a head start on Microsoft, which is expected to unveil its next Xbox console at the E3 videogames conference in Las Vegas, in June.

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Cerny demonstrated the new platform’s graphical capabilities, calling it “supercharged PC architecture" and an “exponential improvement on its predecessors.”

As well as making hardware improvements, Sony hopes its new console will become part of modern gamers' social networking lives, with a "Share" button on the controller to make it easy to post clips of their gaming on websites such as YouTube, and to send messagess.

Cerny revealed that these features will also be available on companion applications for smartphones, tablets and PlayStation Vita. All console makers are facing a challenge from the rise of smartphones and tablets, which offer relatively cheap casual gaming.

“The living room is no longer the center of the PlayStation universe, the gamer is," said Andrew House, chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment.

Sony showed off a host of forthcoming PlayStation 4 titles, as it attempted to make the case for hardcore gaming. They included cartoon adventure Knack, first-person shooter Killzone Shadowfall, racer Drive Club and superhero yarn Infamous Second Son.

As well as a third-party titles, such as Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs and Bungie and Activision's Destiny, Sony also announced a strategic partnership with World of Warcraft developer Blizzard Entertainment, the first time the developer has worked on console. Blizzard will release Diablo III for the PS4 and the PS3, it said.

“Game-wise, it was an absolute home run,” said Michael Pachter, an industry analyst at Wedbush Securities.

"It looks good and had a lot of great games but the industry is different now," added Billy Pidgeon, an analyst at Inside Network Research. "It'll be a slow burn and not heavy uptake right away."

It was also announced that the online streaming game service Gaikai, acquired by Sony last year, will integrate with the PlayStation 4, allowing players to choose a game on the PlayStation store and start playing immediately. With Gaikai, players can also broadcast their gameplay in real time and allow their friends to help.

The PlayStation 4’s connectivity will also be able to automatically suggest content to suit individuals, including pre-loading games that suit their tastes.

The console will also be able to power itself down into a low power state, preserving progress within games. A secondary chip will be able to take care of background downloads, allowing you to start playing games before they have finished downloading.

Despite the innovations, some observers suggested that a potentially expensive box for the living room represented an old-fashioned approach to gaming.

"Tablets and smartphones now engage more people in more minutes of gaming than consoles will ever achieve," said James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester.

"Sony's long-term hopes will be amassing the power of a digital platform that spans multiple devices, even devices Sony doesn't manufacture. But making that big of a change will require massive adjustments at the famously siloed Sony and so far the PS4 announcement doesn't reveal even a hint that Sony is ready to join the other digital platforms at this most ambitious game."